Goodbye
by Living Juliet
Summary: Elena chose Damon, but she also chose to stay human. This is a short story of Damon and Elena saying there goodbyes and reminiscing about their life together at Elena's deathbed. Super feels inducing! I hope you all cry reading it as much as I did writing it!


_This is a Delena scenario that I have wanted to read for a long time now but I have yet to find anyone's take on it so I decided to write it myself! It's one of those heartbreaking Delena daydreams that I have running through my mind all the time and I have really been wanting to see it play out SO without further ado enjoy this tear jerker of a fic where Elena is in the middle of peacefully passing away with a forever young and handsome Damon by her side as they recount their life together over the decades._

"Damon! Make a wish!", Elena gasped, gripping me tighter as her child like awe for the shooting star we had just witnessed lit up her beautiful face.

"Elena…", I whined. "Oh Damon would you just indulge me", she said in that adorable frustrated way of hers.

I laughed softly, partly because she could be so cute sometimes and partly at myself… because I could never refuse her anything, not even something as ridiculous as wishing on a star.

It was Elena's 19th birthday as well as what we liked to call our anniversary of sorts. Today marked the end of our first year together as a couple. One whole year, one year since she had confessed her love for me at her birthday party. Stefan long gone, indulging his ripper at Klaus's side while the beautiful treasure he'd left behind held onto me, as we danced away from the crowd in the middle of my room as she whispered to me all the love for me she had felt grow over the summer and even admitted to feelings she had had before… when Stefan was still in the picture. No moment could have been sweeter and yet I remember the instant the fear and uncertainty began to seep in. Stefan would come back, I thought to myself, and she would forget her loneliness and run back to him because all I could ever be was second best… a place holder until she could be with him again. That's what I had told myself I was anyway, Damon Salvatore, a great lay and every woman's fantasy… but never "the one".

Elena proved me wrong though, over the year we grew in a love so passionate and real that she shattered any doubt. It also didn't hurt that when Stefan did come crawling back that she didn't even bat an eye. We worked together to rehabilitate him and loved him as my brother and her close friend but Elena never turned her heart to him romantically again and she made sure I never worried about whose bed she would be sleeping in.

So here we were, a year later, lying on the hood of the Camaro after driving out to the falls to celebrate alone and make love under the warmth of the hazy summer night and bask in the kind of love that we were certain we were the first and only couple to ever share.

Elena was tucked under my chin falling asleep as I whispered "okay", and made a silent wish…

Coughing… someone was coughing… and suddenly I was jolted awake.

"Elena?!", I ran to the bed side and helped her sit up as I reached for the cup of water on the nightstand that she had been reaching for and held the straw to her lips as she took a few sips.

"Why didn't you call me?!", I asked as I Laid her gently back against the plush pillows.

Elena smiled weakly, "you're so beautiful when you sleep, I just couldn't wake you"

I attempted a smile back and brushed a strand of silvery hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "What are you trying to say? That I'm not as attractive awake? I'm wounded Elena truly!"

She chuckled, (which was as close to a laugh as she could get these days) and took my hand. "It's just you look so peaceful… were you dreaming?"

"Yeah I was, I was dreaming about us"

"what about us?", she asked.

"I dreamt of how we spent our first anniversary by the falls. Do you remember that?"

Elena blushed beautifully at the memory, even at 86 years old she still held all the girlish qualities that I had fallen in love with.

"I could never forget it…. You know you never told me what you wished for." Elena stopped hopefully, waiting for me to open up to her. But I couldn't tell her the truth.

"Oh I can't even remember now, probably an endless supply of bourbon or something to that effect".

Elena smiled weakly again and nodded, "Damon I'm so tired, I think I'll sleep for a while"

"I know love… rest, I'll be just down stairs". Elena was out before my body had even left the bed completely, she was in and out all the time now and I knew without a doctor's diagnosis that it meant our time together was drawing closer to an end. I stroked her face and took a moment to lean down and press a kiss softly to her forehead before turning and leaving the room.

After I shut the door, I quickly made my way to the cabinet where I held my best liquor, not even bothering with a glass as I drank in great gulps, welcoming the burn of it.

You see… the wish I had made that night would not come true. I had wished for an eternity of moments just like that one, perfect moments with her by my side. But now she was old and grey and I was losing her and there was nothing I could do but watch like a helpless invalid.

Elena had chosen to stay human, she had gone to college, gotten a degree in creative writing and went on to even publish a few of her own successful novels. And all the while we stayed together, just as in love as ever.

We loved together, we fought together, we played together, we danced together, but we never grew old together, not in body anyway. And now the time had almost come, the time I had been dreading for decades…. The time when death would part us and I would be left with the memories of a life with her so sweet that I didn't know if I would survive the grieving of the loss of them.

The bottle of antique whiskey was dry now and before I could reach for another one I broke down, unable to pretend for even one second that I was still the unphasable Damon Salvatore. My body shook with sobs of anguish as I tried to keep quiet for her sake.

It had been just 6 months since we'd found out that her body was failing her. She had been reading in the garden at our home in Lexington, lifting her eyes to watch me adoringly from time to time as I weeded the grounds. "Don't be so rough Damon", she had scolded.

"Oh you think you can do better do you?", I teased.

"Here, let me help", she'd said standing up

She blacked out then right in front of me, giving me time to react and catch her before she hit the ground. At the hospital after she'd recovered from the attack was when the doctor told us that it was her heart… again. Elena had had trouble with her heart before from time to time in her middle age but now there was more damage and it was failing her and quickly. Elena was calm and decisive, she knew a donor wasn't an option; not at her age. And she knew she didn't want anything to do with hospice. "All I need is you and home", she'd told me. And so it was decided that we would move back into the boarding house.

Over the years we'd moved every decade or so around Virginia, so as not to draw as much attention as possible. And we'd called many places home and been happy there but Mystic Falls would always be the place where we had both been born and raised and most importantly fell in love with each other. It was here that Elena wanted to take her last breath, and it was here that we would say our goodbyes.

6 months had come and gone and I longed for them back. She had been stronger when we'd gotten here and could walk around and enjoy the house again. But for the last month she had been mostly confined to my old room and bed which was now set up as a makeshift hospital, with IV drips and heart monitors.

"Get off this floor", I said angrily to myself.

I picked myself up with what felt like a world of effort walked away from the cabinet, letting the leftover tears escape my eyes and roll down my face in stone silence. This is what she wanted, this was the story she had written for herself and I had to be strong to see her through it. I couldn't be selfish with her.

Elena was awake when I come back to check on her an hour later but my heart lurched in my chest at the sight of her, it wouldn't be long now. "Well hey there", I chimed in and came to sit in the wing backed chair I had pulled up to the bedside, and took her hand, holding it as tight as I could without hurting her.

When she lifted her eyes to look at me they were full of unshed tears.

"Damon… I love you", she said in what can only be described as a desperate whimper. Desperate for me to hear it one last time, desperate to hold onto that love in these last moments.

I took her in my arms then, lifting her up to hold her limp form close to my chest. "Oh Elena, I love you so much more". She didn't have the strength to even lift her arms to hold me back but I held onto her like my life depended on it because I knew this would be the last chance to ever hold her in this world again.

Elena's breathing was shallow and I could tell she was in pain but she managed to speak.

"Damon, can we dance just one more time?"

"Without saying a word I lifted her from the bed like she was air and made my way to the center of the room where we had danced all those years ago, a dance that had started our years together just as this one symbolized the end of them. I hummed a familiar tune as I swayed back and forth to the music playing in my head, rocking Elena carefully as her head rested on my shoulder.

She was nearing unconsciousness now and I knew she was past the point of replying but I spoke anyway.

"I was just remembering our wedding day", I started.

"And how ridiculously romantic it was, It was just the two of us, exchanging our own vows in this little vineyard in Tuscany at sunset. And you stood there barefoot in the most beautiful gown I had ever seen looking like a geek goddess. And I remember bruising the hell out of my own ego by crying after I put the ring on your finger, and it would have been the perfect opportunity for you to tease me about it but you just kissed me and held onto me as tightly as I was holding on to you… That's what I wished for Elena, I wished for an eternity of perfect moments just like our wedding day and anniversary together, I wished for forever with you. But your forever isn't my forever so I'll make a new wish… "I wish for an eternity of memories of you, vibrant enough to keep me going because it was you that saved me from myself and I can't lose that".

"goodbye…"

I heard it then, the silence. The moment I said it her heart fluttered to a stop and the shallow exhales coming from her parted lips secede completely.

And just when I thought I didn't have it in me I began to cry again. It was only when I felt a presence that I looked up.

And there she was, standing above me where I held her body. She wasn't however the gracefully aged woman I had come to know but instead the youthful brunette beauty I had lost my heart to.

Elena's ghost smiled and reached down to wipe away my tear tracks before uttering one final word.

"Goodbye…"


End file.
